I finally have read this. I loved every minute. AND THIS BABY JUST WON A HUGO! I’m so excited for Seanan!

How to express my feelings. No time to do that. Let me sum up. Oh but summing up is hard… how does one sum up the human heart? Or an adventure?

This takes place in Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children. It’s a boarding school for those who have wandered through doors, portals, down mysterious staircases or stepped through mirrors. What becomes of the chosen one when they are no longer needed? Or worse, have been rejected by their alternate world?

The main character is Nancy, a tall willowy, still girl, with something not quite finished around the eyes. She was a servant of the Lady of Shadows in the Halls of the Dead, loved and protected by the Lord of the Dead himself. But she was sent back and no one understands what she’s going through. Her parents want back the child they lost when she was “kidnapped” and all she wants is to prove herself and find the door back to the Halls of the Dead. She is sent to Eleanor West’s boarding school. But, luckily for Nancy, the place is a fraud.

Eleanor West isn’t going to cure the children of their delusions. She understands their feelings all too well, because at one time, she was little Ely West, and she went wandering in a land beyond a mirror. She knows what it is to try and forget about the real home you’ve left behind. She wants to help them learn how to move on, while not treating them like lunatics.

The first person Nancy meets is Sumi, a Japanse girl who is Nancy’s polar opposite. Everyone is going on about places, calling them a Logic world or a Nonsense world. Sumi is all nonsense. She’s too fast to Nancy’s stillness, she’s blunt, loud, and darling. I loved her. There is also Kade, who helps everybody out with the clothes their parents send them to school with. Of an intellectual mind, Kade’s room is completely overtaken by books. I loved that he was from Oklahoma. He went to a place of high logic that threw him out when he no longer fit the image they had of him. It’s something that mirrors the experience of kids on the LGBTQ spectrum and just added another level to the story. So much of this was about home and finding a home. Choosing your home, and pining for the one you can’t have.

There is a lot of good rep in this – there is a Japanese and Mexican character. Nancy is asexual and there is trans rep as well.

The most fascinating characters are Jack and Jill – I am now excited for the follow up, Down Among the Sticks and Bones, because it focuses on them. They found a secret staircase and went to a world that was like a gothic horror movie. They are female twins, but I think Jack is non-binary, or at least prefers dressing in traditionally male clothing. Jill is all airyfairy and mopes for her lost master. But Jack was another matter. She was an apprentice to a mad scientist and it’s made her kind of morbid. She also has no filter so she’s very in your face.

Ok, so I haven’t talked about the plot at all. Basically, the wayward children start showing up dead. As a new kid, and from an underworld, Nancy is an immediate suspect in the eyes of the populace. She’s not the only one with the touch of morbidity, however. There is also a boy who can make bones dance. Jack is weird and usually draws the ire of everyone. Some of the kids are more suited to investigating the murders than others, and are also accused of being involved. It was just so good. I did kind of guess what was going on, but I didn’t think this was predictable.

I loved the world…. the worlds? I loved the premise of the whole thing, and I just want more! There is an incredible sadness that permeates the whole story – not unlike childhood. It’s a weird in-between place where you don’t have any agency, but you are experiencing all this life-changing stuff. There were also moments of pure joy and fun… like childhood is supposed to be. I’m not sure how I feel about the end, and that is totally ok with me. It felt right but it still made me really sad. I also had the feeling that most of these worlds were kind of awful, in their way. Most people, when playing that “what fantasy world would you like to visit?” point out that all of them sound pretty awful. That doesn’t make me want to go to Rivendell any less. If you are called to a world that speaks to your soul and are suddenly chucked out, by circumstance or mishap, I’m guessing you would still want to return.

I’d have a heck of a story to tell my mother. Papa Legba, the god of the crossroads was alive and well in the country of his origins. That’s epic. Even now, I wonder how much he had to do with what was going on. Papa Legba loves trouble. I just might write a song about all this, too if I survive. I’ll call it “African Chaos.” And if there is a city that rhymes with “chaos,” is it Lagos.
An American woman who was there

I just finished this and don’t know entirely how I feel about it but I also know that just like The Book of Phoenix and Binti, I’m not going to be able to stop thinking about it. I know that voice, in all things literary is one of the hardest things to talk about, and Okorafor’s voice is always one of the best parts of her books. I think that’s what haunts me. I don’t know what it is – it is ethereal. It feels like you are reading a fairy tale told by an ancient spirit, but in this case, it’s taking place in modern day. There is all the technology that tells us it’s modern day. There are Muslims and a Christianity that comes with a heavy dose of witchcraft and superstition, something that American Christianity eschews. Religion is often one of the first social constructs to go in the sci fi or near-future genre, despite the fact that in real life and in real society religion is one of the most unifying and divisive aspects of humanity. Look at the world! The world is tearing itself apart over religion and has been since humanity began to cluster and breed. Why isn’t it in more sci fi? And the meat of this is a sci fi story but with a savory dose of fantasy for sauce.

But the voice of the narrative feels like a fairy tale.

I know Okorafor wrote this because the movie, District 9, set in the country of her origin, Nigeria, really pissed her off. She started thinking about what would happen if aliens really came to Nigeria and the story of the Nigerians was told, rather than the whitewashed version that was given so much props for its “diversity”. The beginning is very abrupt and feels confusing and disjointed. But I think that is intentional. Three people show up on a beach and seem to be walking right into each other’s path. (Oh, this is after the prologue where the sword fish environmentalist destroys an oil supply line. That was cool.) Other people are watching them; a mute boy and a woman who is a secretary by day and a prostitute by night. I have read other people’s take on it: they say the three people are there when the aliens “land”. But to me, I felt the aliens had come through a rip in the ocean from another dimension. I could be wrong, maybe I should go back and reread it, but I don’t want to change my first impression of the book. I mean, how does the ship come OUT of the water? Why does the sea level rise and start to flood the city, unless water is being displaced by something that wasn’t there before? I don’t know, I could be wrong. But the three come together, and are promptly snatched by the sea.

These three people, two Lagosians and one Ghanian, seem to have nothing in common. Adaora had a fight with her husband, a man who has become more and more suspicious since becoming a born again Christian and being involved with a questionable “bishop”. Agu has had a fight with his fellow soldiers while trying to save a girl from being raped. Anthony Dey Craze is a famous rapper from Ghana who slipped out for a breath of air. Or so he said. In truth, he senses something is about to happen and is drawn inexorably toward the beach. As the books goes on, we learn there is a lot more to the situations that drew them to the beach, and they have powers, some left dormant, some newly discovered, that make them unique, that drew them together and drew the aliens to them.

The problem was that I didn’t feel connected to any of the characters. Things happen very quickly and there are sudden turns in the plot and action, so it’s like there is too much happening and too many points of view, I mean even a swordfish gets a chapter. The narration is that sort of camera on the shoulder kind of omniscient – am I making sense? So again that also makes a buffer between you and the characters.

Despite that, there was so much I loved in this story. The idea that the aliens were the nature of change. Ayodele, the ambassador from the aliens, tells them so. The aliens see the creatures of the sea as sea people, and basically help them become what they want to be. They tell the humans they will do the same for them, and all hell breaks loose. Change is so powerful and scary and humans hate it. We’re also irrational as fuck.

The story is fascinating and wonderful. The prose is gorgeous. It feels important. Even when you are with the potential kidnappers, whose pidgen English is very hard to understand, yes, I’m another white person complaining about it. But it adds another layer to the many layers of the setting. I mentioned the multiple points of view – there are a whole lot but it made the book feel so real, despite my complaint I felt separated from the characters. It was kind of necessary if you want to show how a whole city is affected by what is essentially an alien invasion. There are religious zealots, the 419 scammers in the internet cafes, the dangerous boys considering a kidnapping are actually students unable to go to school because of strikes, one of whom is a cross-dresser involved in an LGBTQ group called the Black Nexus, an American singer who had been opening for Anthony, a religious leader that preys on his constituencies weakness and hates and denigrates women, a bat, yes, a bat, like a fruitbat, a little boy who is unable to speak, a family stuck on the freeway when the first panic hits and everyone tries to leave. Okorafor uses all of Lagos and its people, visitor and resident, good, bad, dangerous, saintly, kind, mean, evil and lost, even the flora and fauna. Even the gods come out.

And why not? After the aliens make themselves known and all hell breaks loose, why shouldn’t the first miracle workers come out to play and poke and prod? The mix of the two, the aliens and their seemingly magical and mutative technology and the gods, who are ancient, a blend of monster and myth, are as mixed as the people. Some are trouble makers, some prey on people, and you wonder if they are just being themselves and satisfying their own natures, or are they meting out some kind of justice? You’d think they would be jealous or angry at the arrival of this new element of change, but the gods accept them more readily than the humans do. Maybe when you are as ancient as the gods of Africa, you know change is inevitable.

I don’t now – I tried to get deep there and don’t know if I expressed myself right. Like I said, I know this will haunt me and I will continue to think about it. And that is what I love so much about Nnedi Okorafor’s work.

This is book 1 in the York series **edited to fix – I don’t think the series should be called York. The series should be called The Shadow Cipher, but no one asked me.

As a book lover *cough* *hoarder* *cough* it’s an absolute wonder if I read a book within 6 months of buying it. This one I began the day it got to my house. I saw Richard of Richard’s Book Nook on YouTube unbox it in a middlegrade book box and was so intrigued I ordered it that day and then began it when it got here.

This is kind of like a real-world Ready Player One, only I thought it would be architecturally based rather than in a video game. That is what I hoped for. That’s not exactly what I got.

This is set in an alternate New York, called York, where a set of genius inventor twins, the Morningstarrs, envisioned and built the city to be cleaned by mechanical slugs and birds and caterpillars. Where energy is gathered by silver cobblestones and glass windows that store the energy in batteries called Lions. Where a strange guild runs the trains and subway (called the Underway) with cars so efficient and inventive they never need to be replaced. They also built buildings so magical they fire the imagination and blur the line between technology and fantasy. Then the twins disappeared. But they left behind a puzzle to be solved, the reward for which is a treasure beyond all imagining.

It’s been more than 150 years and the cipher has faded to myth, making the original Morningstarr buildings little more than tourist attractions. Now a developer wants to forge a new path by knocking down the old. Sadly, our main characters, Tess and Theo, named after the Morningstarrs, live in one of those buildings. The mythos of the cipher has always been a part of their lives; their grandfather spent his life researching it and hoping to find the clues to solve it. A villainous pair of the developer’s imps have served everyone in the building a 30 day notice to vacate. This doesn’t just mean losing their home, but the end of the dream of solving the cipher.

I really loved Tess. She clearly has an anxiety problem, she even has a service animal called 9 – a 45 pound mix between a domestic cat and what is probably a cervil. Genetically engineered animals are all the rage and pepper the story. 9 helps her when she begins to “catastrophize” – something she does a lot, her mind spinning on a mad series of what-if’s so that she almost goes catatonic. She calls her brother Theo a robot for his literal interpretation of everything, his pride at remembering every string of numbers he hears and true-to-life miniature lego sculptures. They both felt like real people..

The other leg of the story is Jaime Cruz. He is Cuban and lives with his grandmother who is the manager of the building. His mother died and his father is an engineer who works all around the world and is hardly ever home. His grandmother loves the building, and she knows they will never be able to afford another apartment in the city. They will probably have to move to New Jersey, something everyone in the building seems to fear. Jaime is kind of a third wheel… I liked him, but he didn’t seem to have a really necessary part in the story. He does have a cell phone, which helps out in a few situations, but I hope there will be more for him to do in the next installment.

For the most part – I found this incredibly charming. It felt like a love letter to a city I’ve never been in and wish I could visit. It’s New York to the nth degree. The cast of characters is diverse as far as ethnicity and skin colors go. Even Native Americans are mentioned, and it seems that in this timeline in this alternate world, there was a different outcome to the westward expansion, where the tribes were not decimated. All the characters felt like a person, not a sketch. There aren’t any obvious LGBTQ+ references. The plot hums along – but I don’t find the finding of the clues and the path of the cipher to be that engaging. I often went on these trips with them and was disappointed to not find a solid answer at the end of the trip. There is one breakneck, slam-bang adventure on a train ride that seemed to be what I had been wanting all along – something about the history of the city and the cipher coming together….. and then no pay off. Just another mystery.

I still enjoyed this, I am still very eager for the next installment. I loved the worldbuilding, and the flashbacks to the 1800’s were just as engaging (there are only 2). We don’t actually see the Morningstarrs but see their longtime companion, Ava, a black woman with a mysterious past of her own. I hope we see more from her point of view in the next one as well. She’s fascinating. Heck, I want to see more of everything in this world.

Cryptid, noun: 1. Any creature whose existence has been suggested but not proven scientifically. Term officially coined by cryptozoologist John E. Wall in 1983. 2. That thing that’s getting ready to eat your head. 3. See also: “monster.”

This was a humdinger. Even more action packed than the first one. Basically, the Covenant is coming to check up on their boy. Verity and Dominic still haven’t nailed down their relationship… even though they are… nailing each other.

You know I had to go there!

Anyways – Dominic warns Verity they are coming. What he doesn’t tell her is what side he’s going to come down on. Also, she doesn’t even know where he lives. I mean, if this happens to you in real life, dump the guy. He knows where she lives, they hook up there all the time, the mice even have dubbed him “The God of Questionable Motivations” – I mean, if her mice are giving you nicknames, you should be solid. It kinda makes me mad she doesn’t push him more on it. She’s the one in danger from his cronies rather than the other way around. I mean, the Prices are supposed to be extinct.

This is one of those that is hard to review because I don’t want to give anything away – let’s just say one of the Covenant gang that shows up has no trouble believing in extinct species. And the danger level is HIGH.

There was a TSTL (too stupid to live) moment when Verity takes off on her lonesome and her Uncle Mike who has come to be her backup, who is overprotective at times, lets her go. I say lets, but come on, he knows the danger is high. She knows it’s high. There’s a reason she does it but it seems like a fix after the fact, to make up for the TSTL moment. Of course she gets caught. And it brings us to one of the most exciting points of the book.

We get to see a lot more of my favorite couple, Istas and Ryan, both shapeshifters. Istas is the perfect example of don’t judge a book by their cover, or a person by their outward appearance. She dresses in Lolita Goth clothing, layered in frills and lace, and loves any opportunity to turn into her bear shape and wreak havoc. I love that Ryan loves this about her. She’s one of my favorite characters.

There is a lot of cryptids from all over the world, so there is a lot of diversity. There are Philipino, Japanese, Inuit, Chinese and Indian characters.

Wish I could tell you more about the plot, but really, I don’t want to wreck it for you. A great 2nd book in a series.

“Life as a chosen religious figure for a colony of cryptid mice can be a lot of things, but it’s definitely never boring.”

Our heroine (for this book – there are other main characters in some of the books) is a ballroom dance enthusiast who was born and bred to be a cryptozoologist. Her family, the Prices, are considered traitors to the Covenant of St. George. They split off when a great great many times great Grandfather began questioning the Covenant’s zero tolerance policy towards all cryptids, even the harmless ones. Even the ones that keep the environment from going wacko. You see, there are many breeds and flora and fauna that are cryptids. The Covenant wants to wipe them off the face of the earth, and the Price family try to protect them and keep them safe in the human world. Sometimes, it’s the cryptid that threatens the human world, and then and only then, they have to deal them in a more permanent way.

Verity would rather dance the tango.

Her family has allowed her one year: go to New York and make it as a career ballroom dancer, or come home and take up the family business. Unfortunately, there seems to be an increase in cryptid activity getting in the way of her dancing. People are going missing, well, cryptid people, and the Covenant is back in town, in the form of Italian hotty Dominic De Luca. And where the Covenant goes, the Prices worry. First of all, the Covenant thinks they wiped the family out. The Covenant is stupid that way. As we are told repeatedly, it takes a lot to kill a Price.

Dominic and Verity clash right away. The Covenant is NOT welcome but she needs help. He doesn’t seem to want to kill everybody, or at least he doesn’t haul out an AK and go to town, so she gives him some leeway. Doing some research on the disappearances, they find all the women were unmated or virgins. That, and the rumor of a dragon sleeping under the city suggests some kind of cult activity. However, when you are trying to solve a mystery and hanging out with a Covenant member, and some cryptids can’t get over the fact your family used to be Covenant, well, it makes for some tense interactions.

I loved how irreverent it was. Most urban fantasy is so dark and intense, or takes itself too seriously and this is just a barrel of fun. First of all – the Aeslin mice. They are cryptid mice who can talk and are prone to religious ferver. They worship the Price family. The men are hailed as gods and the women are priestesses. (Sexist, right?) Verity is dubbed the Arboreal Priestess, probably due to her penchant for running across the rooftops rather than taking the subway like a normal person. The mice partake of religious observations all the time – these can last for days or weeks. They have to be bribed with cheese and pastry in order to give her some privacy. I love them.

Then there are the cryptids themselves. Some are hysterical. Some are from myth. For instance, gorgons are people with snake for hair. There are 3 varieties. Medusa was most likely a greater gorgon. There are bogeymen – that is a gender-nuetral term, by the way, they don’t call the females bogeywomen. They are sort of the mob, in that they deal with the underground of the crytpid community. They like to wheel and deal and be all up in the knowledge of what’s going down. There are the dragon princesses who look like gorgeous women who hoard wealth. No one knows where they come from because the Covenant destroyed all the dragons. Also – Waheela and Tanuki, who are shapeshifters from the Arctic and Japan, respectively. It’s just a crazy mix of cool people.

As far as diversity goes – the waheela are Inuit. The Tanuki are Japanese. There are Madhura, which are Indian gingerbread people with maple syrup for blood. Of course, it is New York, and really needed to have a diverse cast.

I listened to this on audiobook. I grew up with a lot of dysfunction in my home, and so much of this struck home with me.

I am a YouTube addict, and I love Hannah. I also watch a shit ton of YouTubers, and there are so many books out there – but I was very intrigued by the nature of this book especially after I learned her mother suffered from a mental illness. I know Hannah struggled with depression, but had no idea her mother was schizophrenic. That is a really tough diagnosis for a family, especially one that includes young kids. And it’s such a stigma and there are so many preconceptions. The main issue for people with this particular mental illness is they don’t know they’re delusional. How do you help someone who doesn’t know they’re sick? Hart details trying to help her mother as an adult, as well as how it was for her growing up, going to college, discovering that she was gay and battling her own internalized homophobia, and having a Jehovah’s Witness for a father. The only thing I wish there was more of was the YouTube side of things. She goes into how she started her channel but I wanted more of that.

The first few chapters were actually difficult to listen to and I approached with a sense of dread each time I started it, but I couldn’t stop listening. I really want to give Hannah props for how she told the story. First, she did an amazing job as a reader and I really connected with her and the book because of that. I mean this was so personal. I admire her for telling her story with so much respect towards the other people in the book, and not trashing anyone or throwing anyone under the bus, while at the same time speaking up for her own truth as she saw it. This is really about her family and their interpersonal relationships, as well as her early romantic relationships. I can’t imagine that anyone would feel they were unfairly or unkindly spoken about. Including the stepfather that kinda had to disappear after things got really bad and then his own situation began to deteriorate.

There’s a lot of truth. She tells things I’m sure were embarrassing to recount and to recall. Like the time she had to take her shoes off in a friend’s house and her dirty socks left brown tracks on the carpet. She never had clean clothes and hygiene was hit and miss. Their house was a hoarder’s house, filled with trash, rotten food and bugs. Her mom would unplug the fridge so she could think better so all their food would spoil. They left their childhood home because it was basically uninhabitable, and it had to be torn down because it couldn’t be salvaged. Hannah didn’t know that when she left the house, that it would be the last time she saw it standing. The authorities were often called for her mother’s outbursts, and her youngest sister was eventually taken away and adopted by another family because the environment was so unsuitable.

My one and only complaint is the same one I always have with a memoir. They are never linear and I get confused. This also had a lot of journal entries and those weren’t clearly delineated from the text, something that would be obvious in a physical book. She would start reading something that had a different voice and tone and I was a little confused as to what it had to do with what was going on – only to discover we had gone on to a new chapter. There were chapter headings but the journal entries came before or between, so they could be kind of abrupt. There were also instances when she was reading exchanges between two people and instead of “he said, she said” she just read the name of the person. If that goes on for too long you lose track of who is who – but again, that’s an audiobook issue.

I think there is a lot in here for anyone who grew up with a lot of dysfunction in their home, a lot to relate to. Obviously, if you are a fan of Hannah, this is a must read. But even if you aren’t, it’s an honest heartfelt story of a young, successful woman and the struggles of how she found he way in the world, even happiness, despite the obstacles she faced growing up and crippling depression. She does it with a lot of honesty and sincerity.

“There is truth in stories,” said Arthur. “…Fiction is truth, even if it is not fact. If you believe only in facts and forget stories, your brain will live but your heart will die.”

Were to begin? At WOW!! probably. Oh my God. This was as good as the first one. Again, so much packed in! So many side plots and it all goes together. The first blow to fall is that Kieran, Mark’s former lover from the Wild Hunt has been convicted of the murder of Iarlath and is going to be executed. (Iarlath is the s.o.b. who whipped Julian and Emma in the last book – basically using Kieran’s eagerness to recall Mark to the fae world, not imagining that instead, the punishment would put a wedge between he and Mark forever.) Basically, what this does is lead them to the court of the Seelie Queen. I swear, if I never see the back end of that bitch, I’d be happy. But that is not to be. For some stupid reason (actually – I know the reason, we’ll get to that.) She ends up sending them on a chase after the Black Book, the one Malcom dragged with him into the ocean. They strike a convoluted bargain – one I do not trust in the least – but basically, she wants an end to the cold peace, she wants the Black Book, and the Blackthorns want their half-sister back. I have a terrible feeling about all this.

First of all, the Cold Peace states that Shadowhunters shouldn’t have any deals going with faery AT ALL. The trouble with this is that a phalanx of Centurions, think Shadowhunters to the nth degree, descend upon the Los Angeles institute. They are looking for Malcolm Fade’s body. We find out that our buddy perfect Diego has been keeping some secrets. Some very convoluted secrets. A straight up bitch named Zara who thinks her Shadowhunter farts don’t stink, is the de facto leader, and she is all up in everyone’s business. There is the danger she’ll discover another one of Julien’s secrets: that Uncle Arthur is suffering a sort of faery-induced dementia, and Julien has been running the institute. Zara has some deep plans for the Los Angeles institute, and if she found that out, they may as well hand her the place on a plate.

Then again if anyone could manage to secure such a thing, it would be Julian Blackthorn. As Kit’s father used to say about various criminals, Julian was the kind of person who could descend into hell and come out with the devil himself owing him a favor.

And speaking of Julien and his lies. My God. In my notes, I wrote “The secrets and lies! All the lies! Don’t lie, kids!” I mean really. They are rolling downhill and picking up more and more shit until his entire life is becoming one giant shit-covered lie-snowball. Here are just a few of them.

In love with his parabatai, which is forbidden

Drugging his uncle so he can appear to be doing his job in brief spurts but in truth Julien is covering his uncle’s ass

Secret deal with the Seelie Queen to end the cold war and get his sister back from exile

Secret deal with the Seelie Queen to find the answer to being in love with your parabatai.

Yeah, because that whole parabatai thing is still a problem. And he doesn’t know what Emma knows, that if parabatai fall in love, their powers become stronger and stronger until they lose themselves. There is also the drama of Emma and Mark’s pretend relationship. All of this has to come to an end at some point – and several things unravel. What is becoming more and more clear…. Julien is on a dark path. I mean, he’s in a position where he could seriously go off the rails. He is willing to take some very dark paths to keep his family or Emma safe. I just hope he doesn’t go as dark as Malcolm, who if you will remember, killed a bunch of people to try and bring back his lost love. Which, spoiler alert, isn’t a story line we’re done with.

And because of what happened with Malcolm, the relationship between the downworlders and the Nephilim are more strained than ever. An extremist group calling themselves The Cohort want to bring the Shadowhunters back to the good old days, when they killed downworlders willy nilly and took their stuff. That’s not exactly helping with the mood, you know? Yeah, the Cohort can go choke. Clearly it parallels what is going on now in America.

I also loved how the team of Kit, Livvy and Ty is working out. Kit has come to live with the Shadowhunters at the Los Angeles institute after losing his father and discovering he is a Herondale. The twins are 15 and chafing at the bit to be involved with everything that is going on. Julien and Emma forget they were the same age as the twins when they started actively acting like Shadowhunters. I love how Ty is developing as a character and the growing relationship with Kit.

This is just scraping the surface of what is going on. I loved this book. It’s huge. The next one is more than a year and a half off. I will forget everything by that time, because my notes were crap…. but I don’t mind re-reading these books when a new one comes out. Strongly recommend.

I just… I didn’t like it. It makes me sad. I love Seanan McGuire/Mira Grant so much, but I actually found this tedious. The main character, Sal, is a miracle. She survived a horrible accident that left her supposedly brain dead… the key word being supposedly… because she sat up and started looking around just as the doctor was urging her family to pull the plug and donate her organs. Awkward! It’s assumed it’s the doing of the parasitic implant she has, courtesy of SymboGen. These things have become commonplace, regulating our health and ending lots of medical intervention. Have diabetes? Your implant will regulate your insulin. Have allergies? Not anymore, not with a Bodyguard™ implant! Forget catching a cold or developing cancer. All thanks to your genetically modified, friendly, gut-existing tapeworm!

The only thing is, the Sal that woke up is not the same person from before the accident. She doesn’t have any of her personal memories – she remembers some things, like what basketball is, but nothing about who she is or where she lived or anything like that. Her personality is totally different. Many people don’t believe she’s lost all her memories – especially her asshole therapist. Her parents were made her wards, so despite being an adult she’s required to live with them. They hover, and hope their child will return. She continues to be studied, poked and prodded, physically and mentally by SymboGen so they can understand just what happened. She occasionally has seizures that without SymboGen taking care of in regards to her Bodyguard™ she wouldn’t survive. All this is starting to wear.

Then, the sleepwalking sickness hits. Usually, it’s in Sal’s vicinity. People just seize out, then go all walking dead. Some are violent, some are catatonic, but one thing is for sure. It’s spreading, and all the infected have Bodyguard™ implants.

I felt the way the main character, Sal, approached things internally vs. externally just didn’t add up. Externally, Sal is a wimp. Like major bigtime crybaby wimp. She freezes everytime something happens. I mean she says she’s gonna go do things like get her dog in the middle of a sleepwalker panic and makes her boyfriend endanger them both by striking out in a city beleaguered by dangerous zombiefied tapeworm infested humans – but when they get there she’s just screaming. And closing her eyes. So she has the motivation of a hero character but the follow through of a cooked noodle and I found that irritating.

Another thing that seemed unreasonable: Sal is this miracle survivor of a tapeworm implant. Her boyfriend is a parasitologist. Her father and sister work for the government and actually knew about the parasitic sickness before she did because they work with… you got it, parasites. There is also another connection I won’t spoil for you, but there are just too many connections. It’s like, how does one person have so much interaction with parisitology? It bugged me. No pun intended. And I saw a lot of this coming.

The main problem I had was the tediousness. I have never experienced a pacing problem or been frustrated by the writing style in a Grant/McGuire novel. This one just didn’t seem to want to get going. And the details. Every step of every situation is painfully explained, from her carrying her bag around with her to opening doors and sitting down at a table. And that’s not even the science stuff. I don’t know why these things just jumped out at me and slowed the pace. Often, the parasitic stuff is explained two or three times. I get the gist of it, but it still sounds like gobbledygook. Each time they were trying to explain what was new or different about the strains of the implant, it sounded like the exact same thing to me. Even the dialog is painfully stilted. I also predicted a lot of what was going on. I thought the background of SymboGen, with the three core scientists and their history was interesting but again, I felt the journal entries and articles at the beginning of each chapter weren’t intriguing enough. They slowed the pace further and made me impatient for things. To get. Going. The Rolling Stone article about Dr. whatshinuts was just repetitive. His personality and assholery was determined in the first two chapter headings, and we met the guy. We didn’t need paragraph after paragraph of this Rolling Stone article to tell us what kind of man he is and what he is capable of.

What I did like: the diversity. I live in the Bay Area, I know what a sampling of humanity you would expect to run into – and Grant had it all covered. Indians, Asians, Latinx people are all represented. There is also gay and bisexual representation and a character in a wheelchair.

What I also liked; Grant’s characters are always individuals and well written. Tansy is a ruthless nutjob but a darling one, who both lightened the tension of the end of the world stress but also added a layer of protection – our heroes aren’t exactly Rambo material and needed the muscle. I felt like Nathan, the boyfriend, was kind of sickly sweetly sincere but still a good character. His refusal to get an implant was a bit of a convenience factor, again. Too many coincidences. I loved Sherman, the only cog in the SymboGen machine who treated Sal like a person. The fact he was randy as hell and British just endeared him to me further. Dr. Cale is a bit of a mad scientist, but she is also a woman, so that’s nice. Reminded me of the other mad scientist doctor in the Newsflesh series.

But these things weren’t enough to give it a 4 star for me. I am less than 100 pages into the next book as of the writing of this review… and I honestly don’t know if I’m going to continue. And that makes me sad.

This is the 7th book in the original Dune chronicles, written from notes left behind by Frank Herbert, the writer of the original books.

I actually enjoyed a Dune book. No. That’s not right. I just have a really convoluted relationship with this series. I’ve been reading it for years and years, have only gotten to the 7th book because I’ve been listening to them on audiobook and only for an hour a day while driving to work. A lot of people have a problem with this continuation of the series, because it is picked up by his son after Frank Herbert died. I’m sorry, but I do not miss the 100’s of pages of philosophy that I honestly could never retain beyond the reading of the books. I actually did enjoy this one more than I have the others.

There are a few different storylines going, so bear with. Murbella, the former Honored Matre is now the asskicking, tradition-bending leader of the Bene Gesserit, that has consumed most of the Honored Matres. However, there are still rogue groups out there. Also, she believes there is something out there that drove the Honored Matres back to the former Empire. A lot of the Bene Gesseret don’t, and a lot of the old Honored Matres are rebelling. Then a warship shows up and the Honored Matres on board are the worse for wear, and believe the blasted planets they’ve seen are proof the enemy has come here – but they aren’t, they are the planets the Honored Matres have used their stolen weapons on. None of this is spoiler – all this has been expressed from previous books. This convinces Murbella and the others they have to look farther into this, and they have to prepare. Oh, and take down those other bitches out there that have been preying on the Bene Gesseret planets.

Then we have the no-ship with the splinter group of Bene Gesseret led by Sheeana, Scytail, the last remaining Tleilaxu Master, Bashar Teg, and our friend Duncan Idaho, even a group of Orthodox Jews. They have a lot going on. For some reason… unknown to anyone but those who are unable to let the dead rest, they decided they needed to use Scytail’s abilities and make gholas from the non-entropy tube he has. So there are little kids running around that are basically the clones of the characters from the first book. Another controversial thing going on is that only Duncan can sense the “net”. It’s a tachyon net (hey oh! Where mah Star Trek Next Generation crew at?! Whut up, mah nerds?) cast by the mysterious old facedancer couple he has had visions of. He knows they are the enemy, and we know, too, because we see from their point of view. They are not friends of our friends. The best part of this whole thing is they find a couple of cool planets. One appears to be an Honored Matre original home world, and then they find another world still settled by people, but that one doesn’t go so well. I don’t want to spoil anything, but these parts were super cool.

Then we have the facedancer contingent. Even among our enemies, there are splinter factions. Crone is supposed to be the agent of the old couple facedancers casting the net. They want the no-ship something fierce. They also want a ghola born from the Tleilaxu stores, and they want Crone to find someone to do it. There is only one guy left, because the Honored Matres killed them all. They are working with the facedancers and give them room on one of their planets. The Tleilaxu in question is Uxtal, and he’s a nightmare. I still feel bad for him, having to deal with the Honored Matres, who are terrifying and bloodthirsty. They force him to make their alternate for melange. This whole part of the story is about awful people dealing with awful people. They all deserve each other.

Basically, the fight that is foretold to be the end of the universe is coming. Everyone wants the no-ship. Everyone is working against everyone else. I didn’t even mention the CHOAM guild and the navigators. Even they are working against each other! I think I’m done with the audiobooks, because I have the physical books for the following installments. I might try and read one a month because there are just so dang many. I will be continuing the series. Interested to see where it goes.

The good news is there is now a cure for elf shot. The bad news is there is now a cure for elf-shot. So it seems like the more rogue of the fae might just go back to killing their enemies. Arden Windermere, Queen in the Mists, knows the use of this either has to be shared and regulated, or there will be all hell to pay, so they inform the High King, who says it is not to be used until a tribunal can be called with all the kings and queens. So it’s called, and the murders begin.

Always with the murders.

Toby is called upon to solve them, being trusted by most of the people in power. Stress on the word “most”. The rest are uneasy as she is a changeling (hello bigots) and a known kingbreaker. I guess that’s what they call people who go around taking people in power out of power. She’s done it several times, at all levels of the faerie court and folks is nervous. They seem to forget she had her own duchy for a short while and after stuffing it with changelings she abdicated it and handed over to the mixed race son of a Sea Duchess. Oh, and all the people she took from their seats of powers were MONSTERS!

We have one little hiccup. Or a little side wheedle in the plot. Tybalt has come to the tribunal as king of cats … everyone knows he and Toby are engaged, but he has to maintain an aloof seperateness so as not to make his kingship seem week. It’s well done. I feared there would be a lot of unnecessary angst, but it was done pretty well, and it kept me just the right amount of worried. It seems strange he would do it now, though, and yet he happily traipsed after her to Silences to try and stop the war in the last book. Just pointing it out…

This had one of my favorite elements of this series – a fun mystery. Someone is using a weird, time-freezing kind of magic. And again, it’s a human myth made faerie real – my favorite kind. And so, everyone and his brother is winding up elfshot or dead, it seems. They are still trying to have the tribunal around the murders, and some people figure on using the elshot while they can and picking the weakest people they can, to try and force the Mists hand. Oh, and that bitch Evening Winterrose, who made the elfshot, is practically torturing poor Karen, the onerimancer (the girl who can prophesy through dreams) demanding from beyond the …. Veil of sleep (Evening was elfshot but the dream realm is one of her realms) She wants what she sees as her best work to remain untouched by those of lesser stature. So there are metaphysical as well as magical problems to solve. Good thing Toby loves solving impossible problems!

McGuire often has themes that follow along the real world problems of racism or homophobia – not using actual racism or homophobia, but how changelings are despised for not being pureblood, despite that not being their fault –they are just born that way, and oh yeah, the fae make them that way by messing with humans. This time we’ve also got a little bit of gun control discussion under the guise of elf-shot. You see, the Undersea doesn’t use it. They know it is only subverting the law of Oberon. They want its use outlawed, period. You can’t run around elfshooting people if it’s regulated. And if it’s illegal, waking those shot unjustly should be no problem.

Basically, this one was a humdinger! I loved it a lot, and I am so impatient for the next one.

Regarding the diversity quotient in this series – it takes place in San Francisco – we’re a very diverse place. I believe Dare and Manuel (their half human side) are Latinx, Luna, the Duchess of Shadowed Hills is Kitsune, which is an Asian fox-fae, and Lily of the Japanese Tea Gardens is from Japan. There are also raven maids, who are Indian. There is a Chinese fae who can alter luck. Anyway. This series does have pretty good representation throughout. Also – lots of gay rep through the whole series, including a trans character in later books.

UPDATE: Sadly, Seanan McGuire has received some bad news. One of her beloved kitty’s, Alice, has been diagnosed with cancer. There is hope, but she is in a bad way and the vet bills are piling up. A few months ago, Thomas, her other Maine Coon had an intestinal blockage. So she could really use some help and support. Please buy her books, promote and review her books or, if you’re a big fan and would like to support her financially, she has a Patreon at: Seanan’s Patreon . This is a really hard time for her, and she asked that we don’t ask her what is going on – if you want to know, please check out her twitter page and she will update when and as she is emotionally able to do so. You can follow her here @seananmcguire